FEATURE: The Oscars and the claim for irrelevance

Gugu Mbatha-Raw (/StyleBlazer)

Last year, 12 Years a Slave made history as the first film featuring a predominantly black cast to win Best Picture; it was also the first to come from a black director (Steve McQueen). McQueen’s blistering chronicle of slavery was also the very best film of that year, a visceral historical confrontation filled with stunning performances and exquisite camerawork – the win wasn’t just a milestone, but a rare case when Oscar got it right.

In 2015, the Academy appears to have receded bigtime. For the first time since 1998, none of the 20 acting nominees are people of color. This shouldn’t have been the case. David Oyelowo’s Martin Luther King in Selma is type A Oscar bait, not to mention an altogether fantastic performance. His omission here is startling, even considering the heavy competition. Beyond that, underdog candidates like Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Beyond the Lights) and Tessa Thompson (Dear White People) weren’t even taken seriously in an anemic Best Actress field, in which Jennifer Aniston nearly snagged a spot for the poorly-reviewed indie Cake (instead, Marion Cotillard very deservedly, and surprisingly, filled the category for Two Days, One Night).

Move beyond the actors. Each nominated screenwriter and director is a white male – especially notable considering the egregious snub of Selma helmer Ava DuVernay and the surprising dismissal of Gone Girl scribe Gillian Flynn. DuVernay’s logical replacement was Bennett Miller, who did tremendous work on Foxcatcher; Flynn’s expected slot went to Paul Thomas Anderson, recognized for one of my favorite films of the year. But what about the foregone conclusions? Morten Tyldum’s directorial effort in The Imitation Game equated to a decent piece of PBS docudrama, and the adapted screenplays of The Imitation Game (Graham Moore) and The Theory of Everything (Anthony McCarten) were riddled with wooden dialogue and cheap dramatic choices. I didn’t love Gone Girl, and yet, Flynn’s absence is more glaring for the merit (and profile) of her work than any (legitimate) gender-related argument.

This gets to another interesting and troubling factoid. Flynn’s Gone Girl was a modest hit with critics, and a huge hit with audiences – and yet from the get-go, pundits rightly prophesized that its subject matter and tone wouldn’t mesh with Oscar. In fact, aside from Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper – a film that has been accused of gung-ho patriotism and hasn’t found nearly as much favor with critics – every blockbuster Oscar contender was ignored by Oscar in the big category. And Selma, the second-best reviewed film of the Best Picture nominees (according to both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes), has earned an A+ CinemaScore with audiences and boasts an agreeable historical subject and evocation. Yet it earned two measly nominations – a post-2009 (category expansion) total comparable with only The Blind Side and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, two movies that critics panned. It’s just bizarre, especially considering that elements like its lush cinematography and costume design fall so perfectly in-line with what the Academy normally likes to honor.

Each Best Picture nominee features men as their principal subjects, with Foxcatcher – likely next in line – no different. Of course, this is more than partly a reflection of the industry. But it’s also, kind of, not. I wonder why Wild, better-reviewed than a few on this Best Picture shortlist and bound to make more money, never figured into the conversation seriously. Its subject matter (and critical acclaim) directly reflects something like 127 Hours, which did eventually make it into picture, writing and technical categories. It had the prolific star in Reese Witherspoon, the director Jean-Marc Vallée fresh off his Best Picture nominee Dallas Buyers Club, and a bestselling story as its source. And yet, only acting nominations (yay, Laura Dern!). And Gone Girl, despite coming close, got nothing outside of its leading lady as well. Unfortunately, this year’s Best Picture race is overstuffed with “great men” – the great Selma notwithstanding, Stephen Hawking (Theory of Everything), Alan Turing (Imitation Game) and Chris Kyle (American Sniper) all get treacly treatments – and although the other half comprises great auteurs putting out their most prolific work to date (Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, and Alejandro G. Inarritu, along with rookie Damien Chazelle), you get the sense that there’s a, um, lack of variety.

But then it all sort of makes sense. Of all Academy members, 94% are white, more than 50% aged over 60, and more than 75% male. I don’t mean to overstate voter intent – but how different would these nominees look if the situation were reversed? What about the widely-praised James Brown biopic Get On Up from director Tate Taylor, completely absent from the conversation and expectedly snubbed entirely today? Why does an old-fashioned Clint Eastwood war pic get such a pass? And I’ll beat the drum – how did Selma fare as poorly as it did? And why? If the LBJ controversy really was a sticking point for voters, I wonder why American Sniper, which is based on a figure now principally known for elaborate and pathological lying, wasn’t set back in the same way.

Does it matter? Selma is doing good business, hitting audiences hard, wowing critics. And the Academy appears to have ignored any claims for populist recognition. Maybe-maybe not contenders, ranging from Interstellar to Unbroken to Into the Woods to, yes, Gone Girl, were all ignored in the top category. The biggest hit of the bunch as of now is a Wes Anderson movie – consider that. And what’s being represented is especially narrow, though in no way surprising given the demographics of the median voter. The Oscars have never been a barometer of quality. They’ve never ensured that audience-friendly films make the cut. But when a movie like Selma, which boasts such broad appeal, competes, it should do better. And when a challenging movie like 12 Years a Slave wins, perhaps false hope enters the equation as well.

By simultaneously ignoring diversity and popularity, the Oscars are making a claim for irrelevance. Or maybe they’re perpetuating an already-entrenched reality. A recent study determined that the cost of an Oscar campaign far outweighs the box office benefit given to winning films; conversely, Golden Globe-winning films skyrocket in revenue. And the Globes aren’t just more relevant – they’re doing better. On the film side, they amply nominated Selma and despite stiff campaign pressures from Harvey Weinstein, lobbed for Boyhood. On the television side, they recognized and gave a profile and voice to seriously groundbreaking stuff, from Transparent to Jane the Virgin. And, again, critically: not only is something new being represented, but something deserving is being represented. Oftentimes when these conversations happen, the main argument questions whether proponents for something like Transparent want to see it honored merely because of what it represents. Heck, Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times generated substantial backlash for implying as much. But Selma is much better than the films that earned more nominations, and should theoretically be more Academy-friendly. And don’t get me started on whether Transparent is better in all areas than fifth-season Modern Family.

Obviously, the Oscars are not the end-all be-all. And to see Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater recognized in such a big way (seriously, three nominations apiece!), or the underdog work of Dern and Cotillard and P.T. Anderson finding its way in, is a delight. But, in 2015, we should ask ourselves what the Oscars want to be and represent at this point. Art is evolving – oh, yeah, Woody Allen is doing a TV show! – but the Oscars seem to stubbornly, exclusively represent the values and tastes of 65 year-old white men. Forget Selma’s underperformance. Completely worthy this year, and yet not even considered as a part of the conversation: Gillian Robespierre’s hilarious and innovative Obvious Child adapted script, Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s banner year, Chris Rock’s definitive work Top Five, Ira Sachs’ gorgeous and memorable original working of Love Is Strange. In these four movies alone, you get different voices and artistry more worthy than what ended up getting nominated for Oscars. I don’t want to say these people were ignored because their films were about abortion, or a gay couple, or racism, or hip-hop – no, not big topics with Oscar or Hollywood in general – but I see Oscar reward similarly small movies that earn poorer reviews and generate less conversation.

This is turning into a plea for the Oscars to be something they’re not. But really, the lamentation here is that the Academy is barely pretending to be up with the times, with what’s good and relevant, or however you want to put it. And there was a lot of good stuff in 2014. Andrew and I will be posting about our favorite movies of last year, most of which were ignored by Oscar completely. Regardless, it is important to ask what the Oscars represent, and what their value is. They are an industry standard, a bold statement of recognition acknowledged and taken seriously around the globe. And while Oscar will always get some of it right, the narrative at this point is all wrong. If we want great directors like DuVernay or McQueen or whoever to get financing and be able to make impactful and wide-reaching films, we need to ask these questions. Why did the industry so profoundly ignore Selma? Why were The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything foregone conclusions? And in what world is The Judge’s Robert Duvall a more worthy nominee than Inherent Vice’s Josh Brolin or Love Is Strange’s Alfred Molina?

Better luck next year, I guess.